Asch removes the makeshift gag, but he keeps his hand on Bobbi’s hair and a foot on her bent leg.
“Fuck you, Blaze,” Bobbi says. “This wouldn’t be happening if you’d listened to your father.”
Blaze scoffs loudly. “Or it wouldn’t be happening if my dad were less of an asshole. Tomayto, tomahto.”
“It wouldn’t be happening at all if they hadn’t taken Rachel,” Pandora adds. She glances at me, and I see the determination in her gaze. “That’s what this is about. Revenge.”
“Then we should get revenge on Bobbi for trying to kill you and Samantha!” I say. I hold her gaze for a moment, then look down at Bobbi. “Lynx. Whatever her fucking name is.”
She’d lied to me about so much.
I’d thought we were friends, or at least on the way to becoming friends. Maybe we hadn’t been close enough to talk about our dreams and ambitions—or even for me to tell her about Pandora—but she’d been one of the first people I’d tried to befriend after Franklin’s death.
That had meant something to me, even if it hadn’t meant anything toher.
“The files we have on you are interesting,” Blaze says. “Roberta Foley. Supposedly, you disappeared five years ago. But you weren’t alone. You had a sister.”
Bobbi’s entire body freezes.
“Don’t you fucking talk about her,” Bobbi hisses. “Not you, of all people.”
Not Blaze? Because he’s a Bouchard, or because of something else?
“Pandora?” Asch asks. “What do you want to do? Talk sense into her, or kill her?”
“Kill her, of course,” I burst out, gesturing to Pandora’s face. “Look at Pandora! This bitch was ready to murder Pandora!”
Pandora lifts her hand to her face again. “Huh. Is this worse than what you three did?”
I freeze.
Is it worse?
It doesn’t feel worse.
We didn’t try to kill her.
“Is it?” Asch asks, his voice quiet.
Bobbi bursts out laughing. “Trouble in paradise? Let me go and I’ll kill all of you to spare you the headache.”
Pandora leans forward, one hand on Blaze’s thigh. Despite the ratty couch and Pandora’s busted up face, they look powerful together.
Like they belong together, ruling over everybody beneath them.
“What’s your beef with me?” Pandora asks. “If you’re getting paid, you gotta admit it’s not worth the trouble anymore.”
Bobbi snarls. “My beef? You fucking Pavones took everything from me. My life, my childhood,my sister. I’m supposed to let you live your life like you aren’t the cause of all this?”
I know the Pavone family has done plenty of damage to a lot of people. But beneath my rage, something about this seems off to me.
“Your sister?” Asch repeats. “What does your sister have to do with the Pavones?”
Blaze’s brow creases, too. “Giulio Pavone retired from human trafficking twenty years ago. Well, he scaled back over the years. I thought you knew that…” He glances at Asch, then back to Bobbi. “The Bouchard Syndicate sold your sister, Bobbi.”
Asch’s expression shutters, all emotion cutting off at once.
“So they sold her sister, then blamed the Pavones?” I ask. Some of the rage bleeds out of me, though a glance back at Pandora stokes it again.
